Photograph from Lieut. W . I. Harris
FAIRY DELL FALLS, IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS OF NEW SOUTH WALES
We are accustomed to associate glaciers and perpetual snows with mountain ranges, but
in all the mountains of Australia there is no such thing as a peak capped with perpetual
snow, and there is not one single glacier in all the land.
ments is that their formation originated
with the people, and that they are popular
governments; that while the framework
of each was the subject of discussion
with the home ministry in Great Britain,
Parliament did not pass the acts which
gave them legal life until they had the
full consent of the people of each of these
nations-for nations they are.
No pressure was brought by the mother
country to amend in any substantial way
the constitutions suggested. A practi
cally complete autonomy has been recog
nized and encouraged by the home gov
ernment in all these New Englands.
The union of the separate States into
these federations has reduced the powers
of interference or control of the home
government which it had with the sepa
rate States which were being federated.
Indeed, those powers have been mini
mized quite beyond the recommendations
of the Earl of Durham.
The foreign trade of these New Eng
lands is for their independent judgment.
Protective tariffs are permitted even
against England, and separate reciprocity
agreements with other countries have
been put in force. While the mother
country must in the nature of things re
tain some control over their foreign rela
tions, the practice has been in all diplo
matic negotiations which concern them to
allow them a representative in the nego
tiations. This was the case in the Joint
High Commission to consider the differ
ences between England and the United
States growing out of the Civil War, in
1871, when Sir John MacDonald was
one of England's representatives, and the
practice has continued ever since.
There have been times in the history
of Canada when there was a decided bent
on the part of some elements in the pop
ulation toward annexation to the United
States or independence. With the ex-